© 1999 Discerning the Times Digest and NewsBytes

Anyone who has ever tried to grow a garden is keenly aware of this simple fact: a garden must be worked. I happen to live in Maine, and for those who have never gardened in our fair state, Maine is just one big rock! Every summer, my son grows a small vegetable garden, and last year he decided to expand it. Usually his grandfather helps him prepare the garden spot, but this time, my husband decided that he would do it himself. The silk plants on the trash bins at McDonald’s are the nearest thing to a garden that my city-boy husband has ever seen. Nevertheless, with rototiller in hand, he naively said to himself, "I will go and turn the soil." By the time he was finished, he had enough rocks for an altar to rival Elijah’s at Mount Carmel, and his pencil-pushing hands were blistered and bleeding. When he came back inside, he fell into his chair and just kept mumbling, "rocks, so many rocks!"

It was a garden/caretaker relationship that God had in mind when He created Adam. "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." (Gen. 2:15 KJV) The concept behind the Hebrew words abad and shamar, that have been translated "to dress and to keep", is that of a steward, or a gardener working the soil and protecting and attending the garden the way a shepherd cares for his flock. A shepherd protects the sheep from being ravaged by wolves, but at the same time, he will sheer and even eat those sheep to provide for himself and his family.

Mankind has been ordained by God with a position of authority over every living thing, and with a special relationship with God our Father and Creator. We were never intended to be considered on the same plane as the rest of the creation. In Genesis 1:28 we read, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." The picture of God’s deep love for us and of our stewardship responsibility is very clear. This Hebrew word barak which has been translated "blessed", holds the idea of the deep adoration, the intense love and favor which God has bestowed upon mankind.

The words "multiply and replenish" carry the idea of increasing in abundance in order to fill. The Hebrew word kadash which we read in English as "subdue" can be clearly understood when we read the same Hebrew concept translated this way in Micah 7:19, "You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot (kadash our sins) and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." Just as Christ holds all the power and authority over sin, so we hold the authority over the rest of creation.

The word "dominion" has been translated from the Hebrew word radah which carries with it a military undertone. Many of the other verses in which radah is found paint a picture of a conquering army, or a king ruling over his kingdom, even subjugation, which means to control or force into submission. Remember my husband attacking the garden spot with the unforgiving blades of the rototiller? Subjugating the hardened ground was what he had in mind.